Expelled from her old school for a crime she didn't commit, Ivy must gain the trust of the High Pack at Ridgeview Academy to stop her new home from going up in flames.
Season 2 of Witchfire
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───── Ivy ─────
The notes of my guitar wove itself into the melody of nature's song. Birds repeated the simpler segments of my tune as a summer breeze whispered through the reeds, accompanied by the burbling voice of the shallow stream by my feet, clear as glass and shimmering with afternoon light.
I closed my eyes. They warmed to the colour of ripened wheat as I sighed, luxuriating in the weight of my instrument. Wishing to celebrate the rarity of such a moment, I manoeuvred my fingers in a complicated fashion along the fret board, hitting low notes, high notes, and everything in between. I wove a web of shuddering and glorious harmonies that would have caught even the toughest of critics in its gossamer threads, ensnaring them filament by filament until they dropped to their knees, tears streaming down their cheeks.
I could become a famous musician, I thought, and it was a thought that ached with longing. The knowledge that I had so much potential but could never achieve it had always been devastating. Particularly in instances like these, when the evidence of my musical aptitude was so clear.
But I couldn't share my work with others. The very instrument I held was forbidden in my home; I'd been forced to secret it away in a cave in the woods, only to be played in stolen moments of solitude, like this one. My hands, my life, could only pursue the art of warfare.
The bitterness of that reminder interrupted my reverie, and I recalled something that defied the events of the previous moments... something that threatened to prove them untrue.
I didn't know how to play guitar.
It was like waking from a vivid dream, awfully disorientating. Sure, I'd picked up a guitar a few times. The most memorable occasion was when I was window shopping at Swan Hill and wandered into a music store, hoping to impress the cute guy at the counter by showing him I knew my way around an instrument (it was only when he started laughing that I realised I probably shouldn't have opened with Wonderwall). None of that warranted the proficiency with which I was playing now, though. Not by a long shot.
Feeling increasingly unsettled, I ceased playing and cast my eyes about for a sign of... well, anything. The woods were tranquil and charming, but ultimately lacked any landmarks to clue me in on my location.
Panic kicked in. Memory insisted that I should be in an infirmary somewhere, healing from the aftermath of my battle with Piper. So why, then, was I stranded in a forest, with a strange instrument in my lap and no remembrance of waking? Equally disturbing was the fact that I felt no inclination of pain, despite having been thrashed within an inch of my life. Worried about nerve damage, I looked down to analyse my wounds... and then realised that there weren't any. And that those long, spidery fingers clutching the neck of the guitar weren't my fingers, and the body I inhabited was unmistakably male.
Everything I was familiar with in terms of my physicality had disappeared or drastically changed, all in favour of the compact musculature of a tall man. When I pressed a hand to my lower abdomen, I felt hard flesh divided into segments. "Oh lordy," I whispered, startled by the husky depth of my new voice. "I have abs."
